GW Lightning Arc Starshine 0 AUTUMN
by LoveyouHateyou
Summary: Zechs, a ride in the forest, and a bit of Khushrenada history.


**GW Lightning Arc Side Stories AUTUMN**

Fandom: GW  
Characters: Zechs, Treize  
Warnings: References to male-male intimacy.  
Rating: M/NC-15. Nothing explicit.  
Summary: Zechs caught up in a lonely loop.

This one is for **KhalaniK** (Have a look in my favourite authors.). I promised to post this one to her in return to her lovely replies and beautiful stories but it was too big for PM.

xxx

Zechs slid off the horse and caught the bridle loosely in one hand. The ground squelched under his boots, and brambles – heavy with fat, shiny black berries – scratched at his jeans. He had enjoyed the ride – a lazy plod along well-trodden paths, an eye out for the snares he could remember, the hunting rifle across the bow of the saddle. From the saddle pouches dangled what he had caught: a couple of rabbits, a grouse and a hare that had not been found yet by a four-legged scavenger. Nothing but scraps of fur had been left of another rabbit. He had disentangled and reset the wire slings, covered them thinly with crumbly forest soil and leaves, and bagged the small carcasses. Blood stained the olive-brown canvas. He didn't like the the pungent smell of death.

_Nothing smells where you died. Gone in a blaze of light and glory. How selfish, this last idiotic act. Treize, you coward. How can hate live so closely with love?_

He pulled off his gloves and raked through the thick mane of the shaggy little animal. Underneath the matted mass of wiry black hair the fur was silky soft and damp with sweat. He stooped to loosen the saddle belt, slid his hand down the legs of the horse to lift each hoof in turn to inspect them for stones, and lightly slapped the warm rump when he was done. The pony shook its head and put one foot forward so it could bend down to nuzzle around for the last stalks of fresh green. It blew away some dead leaves, and soon it was cropping and chomping on clumps of forest grass.

Zechs pulled off the soft blue scarf tucked into his padded shirt and wiped his face. The nights had turned cool, the chill of the short autumn already seeping into the fading summer, but there were still clouds of midges. They drifted through the glassy air like grey veils. The horse bore them with indifference, apart from the occasional snort and flick of its tail.

Zechs leaned against the mossy, black and white trunk of a tall birch and drew a deep breath. Shafts of sunlight cut into the dusky green at the fringe of the forest. Flecks of light glimmered on bright yellow birch leaves. It smelled of damp earth and rotting wood, the sweetness of wild apples, and of mushrooms. If he closed his eyes and concentrated, he thought he could make out the faint scent of roses too, drifting across from the great house beyond the vast meadow in the middle of the forest.

_No matter how grand, it's exile. Exile from what? Oh, sure, from life. I'm living in a museum full of ghosts and bodies. I'm just a live version, the prototype gone wrong. __I so want to believe you're gone. I could feel you die, in every fibre of my mind, and still... I don't get it._

He drew a sharp breath and glanced across the meadow. The Khushrenadas had built well. Once fur merchants, venturing boldly into this remote and uncharted region, they had founded trading posts, bought land, and put down roots. Building on their growing wealth and tenacity, they had managed to marry into the ranks of the nobility, produced soldiers and diplomats, woven connections, settled scores and climbed the steps to power until there was little that seemed beyond their reach.

The house, Zechs thought, reflected much of this in its strange mix of frugality and glory, dusty corners and glowing colours. Over the generations the Khushrenadas added to what once had been a neatly laid out two storey mansion that resembled a large farm house. They were not fond of frills, of wastefulness and frivolity although they were no strangers to a certain dignified pomp when the occasion would justify it. But the house had grown in the same way their assets and status grew, until it was a jumble of rooms. Halls and corridors, stables, kitchens and storage rooms, an island of self-sufficiency floating amid fields and hay-meadows, all ringed by forest – birch and beech near the clearings, and larch, spruce and pine merging into dense darkness further away. None of it was unmanaged, even the wild woods provided for the estate – timber, firewood, fruit and mushrooms, game, twine and sap, honey, fowl, eggs... It was all a well-balanced give and take, and there weren't many things about the place that Zechs considered plain luxuries. Even the shallow little fountain outside the drawing room was useful as a resting point for the pigeons that were housed in a dovecote above the wash-house.

It was the roses, he thought, that were the least useful thing. Not the palm-sized, unfilled pale pink blooms that grew on thorny thickets in some of the fields – their petals and their large, fleshy hips would be harvested for making liqueur and jam, or dried for tea – but the ones that climbed up the walls at the back of the house. Their foliage, deep green with a dark red gloss, covered wide, long-thorned bows, framing the French doors of the drawing room, the tall windows of the salon and the squat, arched ones of the upper floor. They fingered the edge of the shallow, wide-angled roof with its weathered silvery shingles. The carved eaves, once painted a vivid oxblood red, had turned a mossy grey, the thick layer of paint flaked away by sun and frost. Where the timber was rotting, it would be mended every summer – carved out and filled in, or replaced and infused with wood tar. It would have been easier to cut down the roses, Zechs mused, but he knew it would not happen. The Khushrenadas were hoarders of land, money and titles, and of history. They stuck to tradition, and if one of them had decided to grow roses against the back of the house, the roses would stay, flooding it every summer with masses of deep red flowers and a dizzying scent that would last until the first frost.

_How did you do it? Cinq... we were lightyears ahead. In spite of our lineage, Cinq was modern, bright... but you, ultra-conservative, new money having to prove something, why did you tear down every limit and made me cling to every boundary I met? Like someone about to be sucked into a vortex... you were my vortex. And then I broke them all - limits of humanity, of decency, of compassion, with the coldness of someone who has nothing to lose and wants to make the world pay for it._

Zechs groped in the pockets of his jeans, found the silver case with self-rolled cigarettes, and lit up. The stink of unrefined tobacco, grown in one of the greenhouses in the utility garden behind the stables, drove away the heady aroma of autumn and roses.

An eternity ago, Treize had planted a fresh stock, and the summer after that, the new green shoots had borne their first blossoms. White, loosely filled, their frosty beauty immaculate, their golden centres like stars in a silver blaze. He had carefully trained them against a new lattice, between the gnarled trunks of two old stocks, right under the window of Zechs' room.

The buzzing of insects was soaking into the still air. Most birds had left, following ancient instincts that made them flee before the blanket of humid warmth disappeared beneath lacy frost. The roses would fall before they could drop their petals, the profusion of shoots trimmed back, their roots and lower stems packed with mounds of fresh earth and wrapped into thick layers of straw. Then snow would cover the world in white silence.

_Soon, _Zechs thought, a shiver running down his spine.  
But winter seemed an eternity away.

xxx

Back at the house, Zechs handed the horse over to one of the ever-present, ever-discreet servants. Unlike Treize, Zechs was content to know that he did not need a groom to tend to the animal or deal with the game, but enjoyed the convenience of having someone do the dirty work.

As he left the stable yard behind the house, a familiar heaviness settled in his chest. Here, confined by outbuildings, the air was thick with the smells of mud and fresh straw, laced with the sweetness of new hay and the foul aroma of dung and animal sweat.

He rubbed his hands to crumble off some of the horse-grime. Treize had always loved these things, getting involved in the physical side of the estate, letting his men talk him through their work even if he knew it inside out because he had grown up surrounded by it.

_Spoilt, in a way that's nothing to do with playing it nice, _Zechs mused, cloying bitterness sloshing into his mind. Treize's hands had been hard and callused, catching the fabric when he slipped on ceremonial silk gloves. Scratchy when they slid over smooth skin...

Zechs bit his lip. This roughness had certainly been unusual for someone addressed as 'Your Grace', and perhaps somewhat unbecoming. But the Khushrenadas had their own way of dealing with things, and being hands-on had remained part of their family ethos throughout the generations. They had not forgotten the spirit of their ancestors, and they had cultivated it – daring curiosity, a hunger for adventure, hard-nosed pragmatism and an unerring sense for opportunities, all tempered by a certain mercantile caution.

_Merchants made good - and you brought me to my knees. How could I let this happen? How could I forget myself like that?_

Zechs stepped through the back entrance into the wide vestibule. Perhaps that last trait had paled somewhat, he thought, or changed into something else. Treize was not fond of hesitation, yet he could be patient, biding his time until the moment was just right. He would weigh every decision, calculate strategies and tactics, to plunge ahead with no holds barred only when he was satisfied...

_So what? Didn't we both like the chase? Or was I too easy, too boring, for you?_

Zechs pulled off his shirt and carelessly dropped it as he crossed the room. A grand staircase with heavily carved rails, a thick carpet the colour of congealed blood, covering waxed wooden planks dark with age, the aroma of floor polish, soot and stale cabbage. A flagstone hallway led to the kitchen and store rooms. In the winter, the stones would be shiny with frost and covered with coarse sand to prevent accidents. Carved double doors closed off the library, Treize's study, the salon and the dining room. The drawing room was the latest addition to the maze of the great house. It had been built because Treize's mother had insisted on it. Facing South and overlooking the meadow between the house and the forest, the room with its incongruous French doors and tiled English fireplace caught the sun from early morning to late afternoon. Treize loved it for its light-filled space and unmistakeable European touch. For Zechs, this was merely a skin, peeling at first glance. It never raised any memories, it never made him hurt because he thought that, like the rest of the house, the room had a Russian soul. Evident in the patterns of the tiles, their bright colours, the woven carpet that covered the table instead of linen, the enamelled copper samovar that perched on a tiny brass trolley by the fire. Glowing in the jewel hues of the thickly embroidered curtains that helped to mellow the icy breath of winter, in the lacquered bowls with toasted sunflower seeds, nuts and dried fruit that always stood on the long table in the centre of the room. All lightness stifled by the stern, dark chairs with their high backs and embroidered cushions.

A fresh bouquet of roses filled a floor vase by the door. The vase, cut from one piece of glaring green malachite, with faded giltwork, had stood in the same place since Zechs could remember, and there had always been roses in it, their midnight-red clashing uncomfortably with the colour of the vessel. Their scent surrounded him like a cloud as he stepped closer and bent to breathe in deeply. Dust had gathered in the ridges and patterns of the vase. A floorplank creaked under his weight. The echo of kitchen work and the laughter of the workers drifted down the hallway, along with the clatter of cooking pans. The tic-toc of the grandfather clock by the backdoor hacked the stillness of the house into second-short slivers.

_Like heartbeat, _Zechs thought as he broke one of the blooms from its stem. He had to twist and turn the tough fibres until they ripped. Feeling a pinch, he turned his palm up. A thorn had broken off the stalk. It stuck where it had pierced his skin, and from the ball of his thumb ran a droplet of blood. Zechs watched, a half-smile curving his lips, as the drop painted a trail, red on white. He put his hand to his mouth to pull the thorn out with his teeth, spat it out and sucked until the bleeding slowed.

The door to the drawing room was not quite shut, the latch not engaged. It swung open silently as Zechs pushed, and as always, he felt his breath hitch and his chest grow tight. A sudden, choking urgency mingling with leaden reluctance. The metal aroma of blood filling his mouth, making him sick and hungry, reminding him...

The French doors stood wide open. The chill of dusk washed into the room. Zechs could feel it slide over his skin, raising goosebumps in its wake. On the table stood a half-empty vodka bottle. Toasted seed husks were scattered around it. Ash lay on the floor by the fire, and the light caught in smears of polish on the window panes.

Treize, barefoot, in slacks and a white shirt, standing by the French doors, his back to the room. The slanting light of the fading day lent him a golden glow, setting ablaze his hair and casting a long shadow across the room. Almost touching Zechs' feet.

Zechs leaned against the doorframe and drew a slow, deep breath. Rose petals drifted from his fist onto the floor, their broken scent too faint to drive away the smells of stale ash and wax.

_You should have left me my anger. My strength. __You made me love. __You made me weak._

_I hate you.  
Yes. I hate you.  
_  
And as the sun dipped beneath the dark horizon of the forest and the image by the windows melted into the copper dusk, grief ripped through him, undiminished by time and nourished by place, and he went to get the bottle like a drowning man might seize a log.

xxx

The End


End file.
